Katja Zellmer, Dr.med.vet, MS, PhD, DACVS, DACVSMR, CERP

Dr. Katja Zellmer was born and grew up and attended veterinary school in northern Germany. She graduated from the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover, Germany in 1996. Then, she spent one year as a visiting research scholar at Michigan State University in the Equine Performance Laboratory investigating electrolyte supplementation for endurance horses. Following, she completed an Internship in Large Animal Medicine and Surgery at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg and performed her Residency in Large Animal Surgery at the same institution. She became board certified by the American College of Veterinary Surgeons in 2003. Since then, she has worked as Large Animal Emergency Clinician at Colorado State University, where she performed the work for her PhD in the Equine Orthopaedic Research Lab investigating gene expression patterns of chondrocytes from joints with osteoarthritis. She has been with Oregon State University since 2006 as an Assistant and Associate Professor in Large Animal Surgery. In 2017, she became a Certified Equine Rehabilitation Practitioner through the University of Tennessee and passed the board certifying examination of the American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation (Equine). Her research interests are focused on the pathophysiology and treatment of musculoskeletal diseases in the horse, including rehabilitation methods for equine athletes. She is also interested in mental health of veterinary students and professionals and has been organizing resilience trainings for faculty, staff and house officers at the CCVM.